I am GIS faculty and Director of computational social science lab at Kent State University. I was an urban planner with rich experience in survey and field work. Later, I was trained to be a geographic information scientist with expertise in open source software development in spatial analysis and economic modeling. In my research, I try to integrate quantitative and qualitative methods in an interdisciplinary setting. I have published with people from geography, geology, statistics, economy, public policy, criminology, computer science, and finance. My CV is here.
In 2008, I received Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Award (DDRI) from US NSF (National Science Foundation) for my dissertation proposal “comparative space-time dynamics”. These methods has been delivered (and more comes soon) through PySAL, which is led by Serge Rey and Luc Anselin. Starting from 2010, I serve as a proposal reviewer for US NSF. My research interests focus on space-time analysis, regional science, and new economic geography. I am currently a co-PI of US Department of Commerce's Three-Year Funding on "Identifying Communities At Risk" and US Department of Energy's "Coastal Ohio Wind", as well as a member on "Space-Time Analysis of Intra-provincial Inequality in China: Economic Transition, Industrial Restructuring and Spatial Agglomeration" supported by China Natural Science Foundation. In addition, I got Faculty Research Committee Faculty Mentoring and Enrichment Award (Bowling Green State University) on "Identifying Communities at Risk: Space-Time Data Analysis and Toolbox Implementation for Regional Economic Analysis", serving as the PI.
I am the recipient of Emerging Scholar Award from Regional Development and Planning (RDPSG) of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) in 2012. I was invited to give short-time courses on space-time analysis and/or spatial economics in over 20 universities and institutes in USA, China and Japan. My efforts on integrating economic/urban geography and spatial econometrics have been further funded by Department of Commerce, Department of Energy, China Natural Science Foundation, and Faculty Research Committee Faculty Mentoring and Enrichment Award at Bowling Green State University. With the support, I have been developing an open source economic analysis package CARE: Communities At Risk under Economic downturn. The work of CARE won National First-place Award of "research and analysis" by University Economic Development Association in 2011.
My doctoral committee was composed of five famous scholars: Serge Rey, Michael Goodchild, Arthur Getis, Richard Church, and Li An. Before entering my doctoral program, I have been working with other three leading scholars: Drs. Yehua Dennis Wei (MA advisor in Human Geography), Yichun Xie, Michael Batty (MS advisor/research supervisor in GIS).
Besides academic interests, my MTV work was featured in Melody TV station's homepage, and I have written lyrics for quite a few songs.
I have been a highly collaborative researcher in a dozen of cooperative projects sponsored by the US National Institute of Justice, US National Science Foundation, US Department of Commerce, US Department of Energy, US National Geographic Society, Wisconsin and Michigan State/local agencies, China National Science Foundation and Zhejiang Province and local agencies (China). I have been an urban planner, economic consultant, software programmer, and GIS specialist.